


Welcome to the Neighborhood

by molieretzu



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Depending on your inclinations, Gen, Hell has swag bags for new arrivals, Hellhound puppies are cute and growly, If The Good Place doesn't bother you this should be fine, Mild cruelty to Nickelback, Orientation tour of Hell, Passing mention of a few Hellish tortures, Poor Eric doesn't actually get discorporated here, Possible light heterodoxy/heresy, fictober19, nothing graphic, the humans aren't important here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 11:10:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20993855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molieretzu/pseuds/molieretzu
Summary: Eric the Disposable Demon is just trying to get through the day, giving an orientation tour of Hell for a bunch of newly arrived damned souls. Then Crowley turns up, and Hastur gets cranky.





	Welcome to the Neighborhood

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober19 prompt #11: It’s not always like this.
> 
> My Fictober ficlets are not as polished as I might like, because of the time constraints. Mea culpa.

Eric consulted his clipboard; he’d been trying to get the Lords of Hell to let him use a tablet, but apparently that would disrupt Dagon’s intricate paperwork. “So, you lot: welcome to Hell. I’m Eric, and I’ll be your orientation guide today. Do you all have your swag bags? Good. Yes?”

The human nervously lowered their hand. “Um, I don’t understand. My swag bag just has slap bracelets, a dead Tamagotchi, and a roller skate key.”

Eric peered into the little carry bag. “Oh, just hang onto those. Looks like you’ll be based in the seventh circle; those will come in handy later.”

“Excuse me!” Another human pushed to the front of the little crowd, not sounding apologetic at all. “There’s been a mistake. I’m not supposed to be here.”

There was always at least one. “Name?” Eric flipped through his paperwork until he found the man’s details and whistled. “Yeah, says you’re here for multiple counts of greed, pride, adultery, cruelty, selfishness, and being a general prick.” He looked more closely at his notes and grimaced. “Ooh, you were a conservative American politician. Could’ve just said that in the first place, saved us all a lot of time.”

“But I accepted Jesus as my personal savior! He is the only path to Heaven!”

“Yeah, that one kind of got garbled in translation. The actual point was that the only path to Heaven is what Yeshua talked about: compassion, love, charity, all that crap. Same things pretty much every modern religion talks about. Heaven doesn’t give a toss who you worship, or if you don’t worship anybody at all. They just care about results, same as us. Shall we get a move on, then? Got a lot of ground to cover, and if I’m late getting you to your assigned spots I’ll get discorporated again.”

The humans shuffled along behind Eric; he could sense confusion, anger, and fear wafting off them like patchouli seeps out from a Lush bath shop. It added an extra spring to his step. “Has anybody read Dante?”

“Dante Bichette? The outfielder?” another voice piped up excitedly. It seemed this group was heavy on the Americans.

“Not the outfielder. Definitely not. Dante Alighieri, Italian guy, wrote a travelogue of the afterlife. Played chess, terrible at it. No?” He sighed. “Right. Well, he talked about the circles of Hell. Got a lot of it wrong, is my point.

“F’rinstance, if you look to your left, you’ll see the First Circle. Now, Dante called this Limbo, where he stuck so-called ‘virtuous pagans’ and unbaptized babies.” Eric snorted disdainfully. “As if anyone would condemn a baby to Hell. What sort of sins could they get up to? Babies are boring, sin-wise. No creativity, no choice. Now, granted, they’re selfish — it’s all _I’m cold, I’m hungry, I’m wet_ — but that’s not their fault. Design flaw. They grow out of it, and that’s when they get really interesting. And obviously the virtuous go to Heaven regardless of religion, the poor sods.

“What was I saying? Oh yes, the First Circle. What’s actually here are the people who were just generally unpleasant, but not interesting enough to have one really outstanding sin. The ones who don’t really merit proper punishment, Please forgive the mess; it’s not always like this, but we’re installing a new sound system. This one _really_ lets you hear the Nickelback.” The humans did not return Eric’s enthusiastic grin, but he soldiered on brightly. He was accustomed to being ignored. “Looks like a few of you lucky sods will be stationed here most of the time. We’ll drop you back later after the tour. In the meantime, let’s continue our tour.”

Another one of Eric’s corporations trotted by, clutching a disintegrating cardboard box. “Hi, handsome!” he called as he passed. A couple of tentacles reached out of the box, apparently waving their own greeting.

“Hey, gorgeous. Mind how you go.” Main Eric realized his group was gawking at him. “Sorry. It’s a little hard to explain, but he’s me. A bit. I’m kind of a whatsit, multifocal consciousness. Means I can be in lots of different places at once. Pretty cool, but you do get taken for granted a lot.

“And here we have the Second Circle. This is an upgrade from your First-Circle torments, mostly creepy-crawlies; we’ve got ants with laser guns, giant talking spiders, bees with teeth. You know, the usual. In case you’re wondering, we don’t split the circles up by sin any more. Too many people were coming down here with too many sins, and trying to figure out where to put them was a right headache, let me tell you. Now we just move people around, give them a change of scenery, make sure all their sins get covered. And we tailor the experience especially for each customer. That’s right, folks: you’re going to get your own personalized Hell experience!”

Again, the humans did not react with the enthusiasm Eric thought was merited. This was proper customer-oriented service he was talking about; they didn’t realize how lucky they were. He was about to tell them this when he became aware of a sound.

Hell is never quiet, except when you don’t want it to be. The low-level grumble of milling demons, muted screams of the damned souls, barking of the Hellhounds, and yelps of lower-level demons who failed to get out of the way of their superiors was a constant. However, this sound was new. It was faint, but getting louder.

“’Scuze me, coming through, mind your back, whoops, don’t mind me, very important demon business here, if you could just scootch up a bit? Cheers.”

“Crowley? What are you doing back here?”

The red-haired demon smiled back, but he looked preoccupied, hunched over something he was hiding in his jacket. “Hey, Eric! Long time no see. Been discorporated much lately?”

“You know Hastur, always cranky. Hey, everybody, this is Crowley. He’s —”

“He’s in something of a hurry, actually. Love to stay and chat, but no time.” The thing under his jacket squirmed and growled. “Just here to pick up something for Warlo — er, for a friend. Look me up next time you’re topside, eh? We’ll do lunch.” Crowley nodded politely and snaked his way through the group of damned souls, picking up speed once the hallway cleared a little.

He’d only just turned the corner when a howling Hastur and several lackeys pushed their way up to Eric. “Crowley,” Hastur growled.

“No, Eric, Lord Hastur.” Too late, Eric remembered that Hastur was not a fan of jokes. “What about Crowley, Lord Hastur?”

“The traitor has stolen a Hellhound puppy from the kennels. I am going to turn him into kebab for his presumption. I know he came this way. Which way did he go?”

“Er, that way, Lord Hastur.” Eric indicated the corner Crowley had definitely not taken; he’d always kind of liked Crowley, who was always good for a laugh and hadn’t discorporated Eric ever, not even once. If he had to choose between helping him and helping Hastur, it was a no-brainer.

“Good lad — er, bad lad. Come on, you can help us capture him. If you’re quick, I might let you work the thumbscrews later.”

“Be right there, Lord Hastur. Just gotta sort out this lot first.”

Hastur seemed to notice the cluster of humans for the first time. “Don’t be too long, or all the good tortures will be taken.” He and his lackeys lumbered off at speed, and Eric gave the humans an eye roll.

“Right, so it looks like our little tour has been cut short. You’ll be up to speed in no time, anyway: you’ll always be escorted by a demon to and from punishments, so no worries about getting lost or winding up where you aren’t supposed to be. I’ll just zap you to your home bases, and someone will be along shortly to collect you for your first punishment.” He snapped his fingers and the humans disappeared.

The howling of pursuit was getting fainter, but Eric was sure he heard his name being yelled. “Coming, Lord Hastur,” he called, and began to saunter along casually after the pack of howling demons. After all, there was no hurry, and what was the worst Hastur could do to him, anyway? Discorporate him again? _Phhhht_.

**Author's Note:**

> Warlock had complained that it was unfair that Adam got a Hellhound and he didn’t; thus Crowley’s ill-advised expedition. Warlock named the puppy Fluffy, and he grew into a very good boi indeed, albeit somewhat excessively hairy.


End file.
